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Volume 53, No. 26
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CHESTERLAND NEWS Wednesday, May 11, 2022
Your Community Newspaper Since 1967 West Geauga BOE Rejects Newbury Land Proposal Staff Report In a letter to Newbury Township Trustee Bill Skomrock, West Geauga Schools Board of Education President Kathy Leavenworth explained why the board has decided to reject the trustees’ counterproposals for use of the former Newbury Schools property. “Negotiations related to the future of the Newbury site have been ongoing for Leavenworth approximately two years,” Leavenworth said. “However, it is evident that the parties still cannot reach agreement on the material terms and conditions. The board simply does not see a way to make the arrangement work for both parties without having the West Geauga Local School District shoulder a significant financial burden.” “The board of education cannot continue to retain the property and pay mounting maintenance expenses while negotiations continue indefinitely,” the letter continued. “The board is a steward of taxpayer dollars and must act in a fiscally responsible manner. Continuing to spend money on a project that does not support the board’s mission is not financially prudent or philosophically defensible.” As a result, the board took action during a special meeting May 3 to decline the counterproposals from Newbury trustees and to end negotiations. “Although it is time to move on, we remain appreciative of the good faith efforts demonstrated throughout the process,” Leavenworth said.
Newbury Township
Trustees Shocked by BOE Letter By Ann Wishart ann@karlovecmedia.com Surprised by a letter from West Geauga Schools Board of Education truncating negotiations for the Newbury campus, Newbury Township trustees Bill Skomrock and Glen Quigley regrouped at their regular meeting May 4. “I’m very disappointed in the West Geauga Board of Education,” Skomrock said, referring to a letter he had received from the board president Tuesday afternoon. “There’s things I want to go over and I want to reply to this and I want to do it with a cool head.” Trustees recently submitted a proposal for acquiring most of the
available to local artists and 39 acres on Auburn Road community sports teams. and the middle school “In December, we all building that transferred agreed to their timeline. to West Geauga Schools It would have taken us to in 2020 when the townNovember of 2022,” Quigship school closed. ley said. “It was a unani“Things in the promous agreement on the posal were not out of the Skomrock timeline. They broke that question. If they had just promise.” signed the thing, their burden Skomrock said the trustees would have disappeared. So what met with the West Geauga board is this?” Skomrock said. twice, once about a year and a More than 20 residents attendhalf ago and more recently in Deed the meeting, sitting through an cember, when the agreement was hour of township business before struck to give the township time to the letter was discussed. ask the voters to pass a levy. Trustees had planned to place “We agreed on two election a levy on the ballot in November cycles. The voters do not have a 2022 that would have maintained the property as a community center See Letter • Page 5
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